Naturalism Is the Style of Art That Details Precision and Accuracy in Displaying Things

Art in the early Renaissance began with artists such as Giotto, who was credited with beginning a new style of art that Masaccio had taken up and integrated into his art later in the Renaissance. This specific style, being the use of massive figures, relation of background/landscapes to figures, and visual representation of perspective, was utilized by Masaccio in his frescoes in the Brancacci chapel. Masaccio’s Tribute Money is showing a biblical tale ,as the renaissance was not entirely anti religion, but with subjects that are being made to look realistic through a use of perspective (vanishing point, horizon line, etc,) and it is said that Masaccio's work was said to be “ living, natural, and real”. Artists such as Uccello took this style and adapted it to also make his art more realistic by using figures to show the laws of perspective, while others like Pollaiuolo

In the Proto-Renaissance, requisite events took place that laid the foundation for art to change in the most existential way. According to The Encyclopedia of Art History, “In fine art, the term ‘Proto Renaissance’ refers to the pre-Renaissance period (c.1300-1400) in Italy, and the activities of progressive painters such as Giotto(1267-1337), who pioneered the new form of figurative ‘realism’, which was fully developed by

“No painter can paint well without a thorough knowledge of geometry” (qtd. in Butterfield 27). The Italian Renaissance is famous for its art which includes unique style of painting and sculpting, however, the Renaissance made significant remark on the use of scientific techniques which also can be considered as the influence of classical ideas. Although, classical ideas were not advanced like in the Renaissance, it provided the foundation for the Renaissance to revive it again. The Italian Renaissance transformed the manner of viewing the arts. Before, most people in Italy were bounded by religious thoughts and beliefs. Renaissance helped people to shift their mind and behavior towards the secular ideas, instead of vague ideology like

Another change that occurred during the Italian Renaissance was the artistic perspective of this world. People were no longer painting two dimensional art, and non logical portraits. A new technique, chiaroscuros a technique that involved light and shadows, gave their paintings more depth and a realistic imagery. They also made their paintings more realistic by making the objects relative to one another. They emphasised emotions and belief in a universe full of harmony.

Another major idea during the Renaissance was discovering new techniques that allowed artists to portray more accurate and realistic works instead of fanciful and abstract supernaturals. Perspective was the biggest discovery of the time period, but many aspects went into such work. Proportion and foreshortening were two crucial skills needed to achieve perspective. Proportion is the correspondence of a singular part to the entire whole, and foreshortening is the shortening of lines used to create depth. Sfumato, the blending of varying tones, was also utilized in artwork to create depth. In the famous painting “Mona Lisa”, artist Leonardo Da Vinci used sfumato to project a three dimensional illusion to the viewer. Other techniques such as chiaroscuro, the contrasting of light and dark, were

Thus, he tried to paint the universal, and failed. Leonardo, in his humanistic thought, failed. But Leonardo, using the brilliance God had given him, succeeded in every other way, in his lovely artwork and educated observations. The positive side of the Renaissance begins with the art. Giotto, Florentine painter, was the first to gift nature with its rightful place in art. Before his time, nature was painted in symbols, looking nothing like the actual thing. Giotto was the first to attempt to capture nature and the lovely things of this world in paint. Thus, he was rightfully recognizing the wonders of God’s creation. (Although he never could master having people’s feet attached to the ground!) The Renaissance was the opening to a new world of art, and a new view of human’s

Another technique that was developed was perspective. Perspective was formed with the creation of the vanishing point to make paintings more realistic. Masaccio was one of the great painters of his time because of his skill of recreating lifelike figures and movement, along with portraying a sense of three-dimensionality. One of Masaccio’s greatest paintings is the Holy Trinity which was painted in 1427. This painting has a great use of perspective and chiaroscuro to show realism. Chiaroscuro was another technique that was formed to show light and dark intensities to give the impression of depth and texture as well as a source of light. With the use of different shades of colour, sfumato was a new technique that emerged during this time that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones to show blending and oneness. These techniques established a basis of modern art. These techniques are still used till this day and have shaped the way art is currently produced.

Throughout history, people have used paintings and art as a tool to express their religious beliefs and values. Illustrations depicting the Virgin Mary and child, often referred to as Madonna and Child, are one of the most recurring images in Christian and European Art through the ages. Though these paintings and sculptures may have similarities in their iconography and style each work of art varies based on the different artists’ and time periods. Two paintings that portray these features currently reside in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. The first, Virgin and Child by Rogier van der Wyden, was originally painted after 1454. In the painting, the Virgin Mary is holding Christ against her shoulder as he twists around to face toward the viewers. The second painting is Virgin and Child with a Donor, painted by Antoniazzo Romano and originally painted c. 1480. In this painting, Virgin Mary is supporting Christ who seems to be standing and includes a figure of a man with his hands crossed in prayer. While both paintings depict the mother and child, there are both similarities and differences in style and portrayal. In this paper, I will thoroughly examine these traits, as well as address the similarities and differences associated with the two paintings. This analysis will be done by using information gained from reading Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, in class lectures from ARTH 1381 Art and Society Renaissance to Modern and ARTH 1300 Ways of Seeing Art, and close visual

The Renaissance also brought drastic changes to the artistic world. The decisive break with medieval tradition occurred in Florence, Italy in 1420 with the invention of linear perspective. This innovation made it possible to represent three-dimensional space on a flat surface. In previous years, objects had been represented on the canvas as one-dimensional. This paralleled the one-dimensional thinking of the time and served to create rigid and unrealistic portrayals in art. Another ideal that evolved was the culmination of harmony and proportion. The human form was seriously analyzed for the first time. Careful attention was payed to minute details such as the shape of muscles and how they looked as they moved. This led to a more realistic and accurate reproduction of the human body. During the Renaissance "...the medieval aspects of the Christian religion were swept away, especially by the violent surge of the Reformation: No other artist managed, as Michelangelo did, to portray this change in his works..." (Heusinger 3).

Naturalism in art is both a style and a theory of accurate representation of details in demonstrating an object or living thing.2 For example, to portray an animal anatomically correctly, one needs to see the animals from the inside out. Similar to Leonardo Da Vinci, Bonheur would dissect the animal to understand the anatomy.1 Unlike Da Vinci, Bonheur strictly dissected animals. Being anatomically correct is a huge key in making a piece of work realistic. The purpose of explaining her work is to prove that Rosa Bonheur displays naturalism through her painting.

There were many great artists spread across the time of the Renaissance. Some of them were leading the way in new artistic techniques created during the Renaissance, while others used inspiration from a past artisan to establish their own styles and methods. About a century before the art caught on, a Florentine painter by the name of Giotto was the first to break away from the Middle Age style of painting. "Giotto was the towering artistic genius of the 14th century, so far ahead of his time that no other painter approached his level of work for almost a hundred years" (Walker 78). Even though Giotto was ahead, he lacked the awareness of perspective, but he used space, light, and color to create a very strong sense of the human form, along with a storyteller's ability to capture the central moment in a particular scene (Walker 78). One of the important pieces of the revolution that Giotto started was that he established painting as a major art for the next six centuries, and he also founded the method of pictorial experiment through observation (Gardener 568). After Giotto there was a architect that came along in the early

Generally believed to have begun in Florence, the Renaissance – also known as the ‘Rebirth’ – was a period of reviving interest in classical art and the beginning of scientific revolution. The Renaissance period did not begin abruptly; instead, it was an idea that took shape since the time of the painter Giotto (Gombrich 2007). In the early Renaissance period, Giotto experimented with and laid the foundation for painting with perspective, a method that was refined and perfected by later painters and sculptors. The period towards the end of the fifteenth century was known as the High Renaissance. It was the apex of artistic innovations, techniques, and productions. The height of the

Stylistic concern is not the only argument that objects the painting’s attribution to Raphael, but also the inferior quality in the rendition of Mary and Christ. Observations of Beck suggest that Mary’s hair looks confusing and unsolved , while the underdrawing revealed by IR investigation shows a clearer representation of the braids that possibly the painter-in-question became more “exclusive on this own during the painting stage that he dropped the refinement of her hair” stemming from mimicking Raphael’s painting when drafting. Furthermore, the current depiction conveys a sense of obfuscation in posing of Mary’s right thigh compared to Small Cowper Madonna (fig. 2) or the Bridgewater Madonna (fig.4), with statically drawn Infant balancing difficultly on the invisible leg of Mary . It is inexplicable that the engravings (fig. 6 and 7) after the painting look more convincing that they have complemented the unnaturalness of the original.

In this relief, we see it as Christ the child shares the viewer his joy of starting his new adventure as well as praising the purity of Virgin Mary. There are also three angels emerging from the cloud. In the Old Testament, angel’s functions refer to convey God’s will to mankind, which in this relief the angels reminds us of their role as “annunciators (ABRAHAM, 2: The three angels). They were the ones who carried messages from god and annunciated the birth of Christ. They are the witnesses of Christ the child coming to the human world as well as proof of Virgin Mary’s virtue of immaculate. In this relief, they are the guardian of the Virgin and child as well as admirers of Mary’s pure and virgin status. With their hands holding together in prayer, they show their blessings and caring to the mother and son as well as to the human world. In addition, unlike other Virgin Mary we see in churches’ altarpieces that are usually seated on throne, we also have Mary sitting humbly on the ground in this relief. According to Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art, there is a popular theme of “Madonna of Humility” which its essential figure is that the Virgin is seated on the ground. The dictionary also states that artists set Virgin Mary on the ground to convey a medieval theology,

The Lucca Madonna portrays Virgin Mary sitting on a throne feeding baby Jesus. Van Eyck's use of color truly draws the viewer to the painting. As soon as one sees the painting they as on looks upon the painting they are guided towards Mary and Jesus' bright skin then is soon drawn to the beautiful scarlet dress Mary is wearing. There seems to be little negative space in the paintings. The throne of which Mary sits on does not belong in the room. The only other items located in the room is the fruit on the window seal and the trinkets on the shelf.